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Greg Mottola

Greg Mottola

Highest Rated: 88% Adventureland (2009)

Lowest Rated: 19% Keeping Up With the Joneses (2016)

Birthday: Jul 11, 1964

Birthplace: Dix Hills, New York, USA

A protege of Steven Soderbergh and Nancy Tenenbaum, Greg Mottola made his directorial debut with "The Daytrippers" at the Slamdance Film Festival in 1996, which then went on to win mild critical applause and earn him a place in the latest new wave of independent filmmakers. Raised on Long Island, New York, Mottola studied art at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he also made some student films and worked for one week as a production assistant on "Day of the Dead" (1985), a George Romero horror flick. He attended Columbia University for graduate school in film. While there, he made a short film entitled "Swingin' in the Painters's Room" (1989), which focused on New Yorkers, narcissism, infidelity and a portrait of Frank Sinatra all in 11 minutes and in one continuous shot as an homage to Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil." An agent sent the film to Steven "sex, lies and videotape" Soderbergh, who met with Mottola. Soderbergh liked a script Mottola had written called "Lush Life," and recommended him to the Sundance Film Festival lab. Mottola studied there in 1992, but "Lush Life" was considered too expensive to be made indie. Instead, Nancy Tenenbaum, who had produced "sex, lies and videotape" and whom Soderbergh had connected to Mottola, suggested the young filmmaker writer something which could be done on a smaller scale. Over a several year period, Mottola wrote drafts of "The Daytrippers," which focuses on a young wife in Long Island who believes her husband is cheating on her. Enlisting her family for support, they pile into a car and head for Manhattan to get the goods on the husband. Ultimately rejected by Sundance, "The Daytrippers" was produced for $60,000 on 16 millimeter, and a camera was even stolen during production. Starring Anne Meara, Parker Posey, Liev Schreiber, and Stanley Tucci -- indie favorites all -- it premiered at the Slamdance Festival in 1996, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, and was distributed by Columbia/TriStar that year. (Mottola claims to have rejected an offer by a Hollywood producer to do the film through the studio system in favor of going indie.) The film was not as embraced at the box office and by critics as other indies of the year such as "Swingers," and "Welcome to the Dollhouse," but it beat out the latter for the Grand Prix award at the Deauville Film Festival, and certainly was enough to launch Mottola's career. Mottola also appeared in a small role in the 1992 independent feature "Vermont Is Forever."

Highest rated movies

47% 49% Hollywood Ending
42% 42% Celebrity

Filmography

Movies

Credit
86% 74% Confess, Fletch Director,
Screenwriter,
Executive Producer
$711.6M 2022
19% 37% Keeping Up With the Joneses Director $14.9M 2016
61% 54% Clear History Director - 2013
70% 62% Paul Director $37.4M 2011
88% 61% Adventureland Director,
Screenwriter
$16.0M 2009
88% 87% Superbad Director $121.5M 2007
47% 49% Hollywood Ending Assistant Director (Character) $4.8M 2002
42% 42% Celebrity Director (Character) $5.0M 1998
74% 74% The Daytrippers Director $2.1M 1996

TV

Credit
90% 86% Dave Executive Producer,
Director
2020-2021 2023
71% 80% The Dangerous Book for Boys Executive Producer,
Director,
Creator,
Writer
2018
No Score Yet 91% The Newsroom Director 2012
75% 85% Arrested Development Director 2003-2004